Hello All, I'm new to this forum. The problem with my 406 estate is unexpected and this is why: My car was broken into by someone who didn't want to break glass, so they grabbed the top of the driver's door and yanked. The upper part of the doorframe is very strong, but it bent out about 6", enough to get a hand in and open the door. Surprisingly, the door glass didn't break. After a lot of pulling the frame inwards I managed to move it about 10mm, just enough to get the glass down. Trying to straighten the frame was incredibly hard. Eventually, with the help of a 7 foot lever, I managed to get it to its original position, but there are, of course, a couple of nasty little kinks towards the base of the frame front and rear. The door closes fine, though and apart from slightly increased wind noise at speed, everything seems OK. However, after I'd repaired the door, I went for a test drive, forgetting I had removed the plastic weather guard which clips into the doorframe at the base of the window. Needless to say, it blew off and I couldn't find it anywhere along the road I'd travelled.

This was a few weeks ago and with Christmas and NY getting in the way, I forgot about the strip. It's been raining heavily where I live, but I wasn't worried, as the door has ample drainholes. However, after working fine till now, the lock won't work at all. The key goes in fine, but as I turn it anti-clockwise to unlock, it goes about 10mm then seems to come up against something hard and refuses to go any further.

The key plip thing stopped working ages ago and I've just left like that, after trying for ages to get it to work. It's not a big problem to me.

The front passenger door lock accepts the key and there's a click from all the locks, but then it just clicks again and opens the car up. This means that, apart from the door at the back of this Estate, I have to leave the poor old chap unlocked. Not great.

So what I'd greatly appreciate is some advice about my lock problems and also to know if anyone has a spare window rain guard that I can purchase.

I suspect your best bet would be finding a replacement door, ideally of the same colour, in a scrapyard.

It might be that one of the link rods that connect the door lock assembly to the interior and exterior door handles has been dislodged and is stopping the lock mechanism moving freely. You might be able to pop it back on, but they are fiddly things on an undamaged door. If you could get the door lining off one in a scrappy and see how it works/collect a collection of spring clips, trim fixings and so on it would improve your chances of success.

Sounds like your driver's door lock is failing to make the contacts that tell the c/locking it's locked.

Door locks themselves are interchangeable between cars, no coding or anything, only the lock barrel is unique, (but yours is OK by the sound of it).

If you do go for a door swap, try to get one from the same vintage 406, (old shape D8 up to about 1998; New shape up to roughly Y reg; or the final 51/02/52/03/53/04 type). I honestly don't know if the door differs at various ages, but you're more certain of a match if it's from the same era.

Hi, and welcome from me too.
I agree with Doggy on the driver's door lock being at fault - can you remove the connector and clean the contacts with contact cleaner and a toothbrush..?
I will add that the window weather strip was changed how it's held in place at some point - some are clipped in but others have 2 little torx screws to fix them in...

It's not a bad job to swap a door lock over ( the key barrel and handle are separate to the lock ) but take plenty of pictures along the way.....

I think what I'll do is try and get off the doorcard and have a look as per your suggestions. Thanks also for your info regarding the two different types of window weather strip. With this in mind, I'm going to phone around the various local scrapyards and ask if they have 406s in their yard and may I have a look? My one local-ish breakers yard is reasonably amenable to people having a sniff round. But I'm finding that the 406s are so long in the tooth now that even breakers yards seldom have stock of parts or of cars.

My old Peugeot has yet to cross the 95,000 mile mark and as I'm now in my 70s and on a meagre pension, I'm going to keep looking after the car and make it run for as long as I can. So any help of the kind you have both given is much appreciated.